My responses follow below. The discussion is important.

@Mark Wendman. Thanks for your intelligent criticism.

>MW> My pleasure, interesting thoughtful discourse is productive and not filled with all too common invective about irrelevant issues, but exchanges about issues that matter, in substantive ways.
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I’m personally very familiar with all of the mass transit options in the Bay Area. Bus services are currently pretty adequate,

>MW> I’d question that perspective as regional buses and public transportation are very modest in quantity, in relation to private commute vehicles, and furthermore, feeder routes are very poorly supported by short schedules, modest route coverage, and infrequent operation in what should be useful connections near round the clock.

Many folks in the area say it is inconvenient to use public transportation ( as evidenced by proportionately few using regional public transportation in commutes), and it is largely because public transportation is less than adequate in convenience. But hardly acknowledged as such in the press.
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and what’s more, expanding them won’t solve the problem of road congestion for longer-range commuters and for long-distance travelers….

>MW> Correct expanding local mass transit services will not solve the Hwy 101 road congestion for longer region to region range commuters and long distance travellers, but that is the point. The largest problem is not the fewest customers as the proposed service of the rapid (disproportionately expensive) train might serve? but where most folks spend there time on regional / local commutes.

Longer distance Bay commuters would be best served with quick cheap improvements to a hugely expanded bus service and implemented far faster than the possible 5-7 years construction lead time to delivering the proposed hugely expensive project.
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Busses will just be stuck on the highways along with everyone else.

>MW> I take issue with this, as a large fleet of buses and expanded service feeder routes will take many many cars off the road, which is precisely what I am trying to highlight, and do it far faster than a very long lead time fast expensive rail service for a far narrower customer base.

Each regional commute bus will take say 50 or more cars off the road. Deploy 200 buses from the central valley to the bay running 3 daily trips each direction, and you remove 10000 commute cars, far more than an expensive rail service could and at far far less capital cost, PLUS it can be deployed almost immediately, not 5 or more years delay to deploy rail services?

Remove 30000 satellite regional commute cars (North, South and Central Valley cumulative) and then you have a real impact on road congestion beginning next year and reduce use of non renewable petroleum fuels, and clean the air… and reduce wear on the highways significantly.

I’d call that cost effective and will quickly increase productivity of workers with less commute stress. ( unspoken benefit ).

If each bus costs $250k x 200 buses = $50m which is clearly dwarfed by a fraction of the proposed $10B, that is $10 BILLION dollar bond?

One could serve multiple satellite communities – north of the GG Bridge, and to the south of San Jose in addition to the central valley and increasing each respective region’s feeder routes for a fraction of $10B in capital costs, say total for the Bay area for huge needed increases in public transportation infrastructure, for less than $1B, and repeat this in LA and San Diego for a massive reduction in inefficient auto commutes.

My figures here are rough approximations, but you can get the idea of relative magnitudes.
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And solving that problem in turn means expanding highways to include bus lanes, which will also cost a lot, and won’t deliver the same punch as trains.

>MW> reducing cars on the road by significant amounts ( say 30k fewer cars in regional commutes coming to the bay region), will notably reduce net traffic and not increase the need to add lanes, it can do the reverse of what you claim, and significantly so.

A large increase in operating bus fleets would indeed reduce total traffic if done at an appropriate needed large scale (not token increases for PR releases), and reduce traffic in the valley, not just the distance commute. Clearly an important aspect is commute transit parking and large increase in feeder route services. Integrated solutions. Hopefully you can visualize this alternate future?
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However, I’m all for expanding and integrating regional transit systems, too. In fact, I think that needs to happen in tandem with CHSR.

>MW> I contend that CHSR is largely misplaced funds on a very large scale, in the context of present commute deficiencies, as it serves a very small community and a very small need in relation to the large magnitude of expenditure, funds better spent elsewhere in public transportation and able to have a useful positive impact far far sooner.

-more jobs
-better for the environment
-convenient travel
-more attractive state to invest in
-better technology

This will keep California in the forefront of innovation.

As for the cost of building and riding, that will always be up for adjustment and debate. The system just needs to be built.

If I may, I would like to respond, more or less point by point, to your article. Actually, the ticket price that is most frequently quoted is $55. one way for the SF to LA route. That will be in 2030 according to the CHSRA.
Would you want to predict the price of anything 22 years out?

Train ticket sales, for regular as well as high speed trains worldwide begin, today, at twice the $55. for similar distances. Many bloggers who return from Europe or Japan will convey that information; that is, it’s “expensive” to ride those trains. And, you doubtless know, all passenger rail systems are massively subsidized, so talking about profits is rhetorical.

You talk about the “value” of this project. A better way would be to talk about the “cost/benefit” ratio. Therefore, you have to acknowledge that the costs will be staggering, regardless of where the money comes from. There are many examples of under-pricing (lowballing) infrastructure projects (Bay Bridge; Boston Big Dig; the Eurotunnel, for example) A Danish researcher, Bent Flyvbjerg, has published findings about this practice. My point is this: Is there a cost point for this project that makes it no longer worthwhile? Say, like the Iraq war.

If you become a student of this practice you will discover that you cannot disagree with a cost projection of $100 billion. It will be all borrowed money, both from public state and federal treasuries and private ones. These debts require not only interest payments, but a return on principle, like a mortgage.

Given the cost and the linkages, the likelihood of lower income workers using this train as a mode of commuting is actually rather slim. Those people would prefer slower and lower cost modes of transit. Let us be clear here, whatever this train is, it is not mass transit. It could be that, locally in the LA Basin, but that is not the rhetoric or the intention of the developers.

Yes, they claim that it will create 450,000 new jobs and will require 300 thousand man-years to construct. The fact is, there is no way of predicting this. Half a million jobs will be created in the next fifty years, or not, based on large, macro-economic forces, the nature of the global and national economy, the well-being of California’s industrial and agricultural capacity and similar basic sea-changes. It is a presumptuous claim to assume credit for such expansion to the creation of a north-south railroad system.

Speed of travel, the CHSRA claims will be faster by train than plane. No matter what the obstacles are, that’s nonsense. Indeed, airports are becoming more efficient at moving people through the terminal obstacle course. At the same time, it is naïve not to believe that this train, and others, will not require far greater security measures now not in place. We have been blessed by not having a post 9/11 terror attack. I suggest that one more, and there will be a major clamp-down, trains included. (Madrid?)

Back to $42 billion. Construction, which won’t begin for another several years, will take 10 years, more or less, to complete. Do you want to predict the construction costs 10 to 15 years out? You already know about sinking dollars, rising inflation world wide, fierce competition for construction materials, decline in credit availability, etc. The $42 billion is a number like the $55 train ticket. Even if it were true today, which it isn’t, these numbers will skyrocket. I say again, $100 billion total costs is not unreasonable.

There are many more issues that need to be seen through lenses other than those provided by the train developers. Amazingly, very few people have been willing to do that; that is, challenge their own assumptions.

We can continue this discussion if you so wish. However, I do want to introduce another element which, after you have read these articles, ought to give you further pause about the efficacy of this project. Here are some web-sites worth your time. A little background and history may be helpful.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20040822/ai_n14580705
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-pblie.htm
http://www.counterpunch.org/trainor12092003.html
http://www.calrailnews.com/crn/1102/1102.pdf

Cordially,

Martin

@morris brown. If you want to seriously question CHSR’s stats, you’re going to have to put some actual effort into disproving them. Right now, you have a lot of unsupported assertions that you still need to back up. Sorry.

@Martin Engel. I think your skepticism is healthy, and I’d like to CHSR become so transparent about how they plan to use the money that they placate critics like you. That said, I think you’re ranging into hyperbole when you make the assumption that the train will actually cost $100B and that CA will pay for all of that. As I said in my article, 3/4 of the projected $42 billion is already going to be paid for by the feds and by private sources. I actually do think that with a state population of 50 million by 2020, with a continual stream of tourists and biz travelers, this train could see meaningful ridership. Also, the demographic trends are completely in the train’s favor — younger people want to live in urban areas, and don’t want to drive their cars everywhere. And they also want efficient means to travel long distances.

Who is going to pay for it? We all are. Are these the right priorities for a state in debt and deep financial trouble? This bond issue is about state borrowing, like a mortgage we must keep paying.

If you are struggling to make your mortgage payments, are you going to borrow money to buy a Ferrari? That is exactly what this bond issue’s promoters ask us to vote for.

“As a rule of thumb, each $1 billion of new bonds sold at 5% interest adds close to $65 million annually in state debt-service costs for as long as 30 years.” (CA State Legislative Analysts Office).

That means paying the debt service on this $10 billion high speed train bond will take $650 million each year from the state treasury for as long as 30 years. That amounts to $19.5 billion, twice the cost of the original bond. As the TV ad says, “It’s your money!”

“Other people” will not be paying for this high-speed train; it will come out of our treasury and therefore our pocket. Operation and maintenance costs will certainly tax us even further.

Could the State run into the same financial problem as the current sub-prime mortgage crisis in this country? You bet.

This is not the time to be borrowing $10 billion to build a luxury train. Should we be known as the state with high-speed trains and low-speed schools? And, you can be sure that the $10 billion is only a small down payment. They say total costs will be $42 billion. Wrong. Think $100 billion.

No passenger train in the United States has ever been profitable. Amtrak passenger rail loses many millions every year.

The CHSRA promises 117 million annual passengers.
That’s over one third the entire U.S. population! It means one full train, every two minutes, every day. How dumb do they think we are?

Underestimating costs, over-promising results; that’s the railroad developers’ standard practice!

We all should be asking who the real beneficiaries will be if this bond issue passes. Answer: construction companies, right-of-way landowners and developers, armies of consultants, engineers and contractors, lawyers and politicians, railroad bureaucrats and their empire-building agendas. And, the lead contractor, Parsons Brinckerhoff, with a history of waste, fraud and corruption.

California has serious transit needs. The greater Bay Area needs a regional transit system for a growing population, as does the Los Angeles Basin. This high-speed train isn’t even close to doing that. Instead, it will waste vast resources that could be spent on improving urban transit in both those high population regions.

Talk about pork-barrel politics, if this bond issue passes, it will be the biggest boondoggle in the history of the United States.

Rather than just read this one article and decide how wonderful, do some research and learn that this whole project is nothing more than another scheme to make money for the promoters.

http://www.derailhsr.com

morris brown